[WAR] ... and AP

[Sean Lynch]

On Fri, Sep 2, 2016 at 12:16 AM, jim bell <jdb10987 at yahoo.com> wrote:

>
> *From:* Sean Lynch <seanl at literati.org>
> On Thu, Sep 1, 2016 at 10:47 AM, juan <juan.g71 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> On Thu, 1 Sep 2016 22:35:47 +1000
> Zenaan Harkness <zen at freedbms.net> wrote:
>
> > On Thu, Sep 01, 2016 at 02:47:08AM -0600, Mirimir wrote:
> > > How about we implement a working AP system?
> >
> > As I said in a previous thread, I now believe that to be fundamentally
> > flawed - that it will not achieve anything resembling justice, even in
> > the long term.
>
>         The idea of finishing off criminals like cops, soldiers,
>         politicians, corporatist 'business' men, etc is pretty sound.
>
>         The problem is of course how to implement it. If AP can be
>         turned against honest people then it's obviously not a good
>         implementation.
>
>
> >Of course AP can be turned against "honest people." It's a system for
> turning money into death without knowing where the money came from. >Rich
> people make out like bandits in such a system, because they can hire
> bodyguards non-anonymously and pay to have their enemies killed
> >anonymously.
>
> You didn't think you could say that without arousing my defensiveness of
> my 'baby', AP?
>
> I think your error is that you are mixing pre-AP reality with post-AP
> reality.  In
> today's world (pre-AP) in order to make a societal change, ordinary people
> generally
> have to speak up, to yell, to protest, and (sometimes) to vote.  And
> usually the former
>  hasn't been easily done anonymously, so arguably the big, powerful people
> learn who these
> trouble-making little folk are.  In principle, this would allow the
> important people to
> kill the ordinaries:  Except that it is generally expensive and risky for
> such a thing to
> occur, and the protestors usually greatly outnumber the rich ones,  so the
> typical
> protestor is relatively safe from harm, today.
>
> In an AP-functioning world, it would seem that the important, rich people
> would be
> able to kill off the complainers.  But remember, in an AP world it would
> no longer
> be necessary for little ones to loudly complain:  A donation by AP (and
> those of
> thousands of other 'poor' people?) would provide the 'convincing'
> necessary, and do so
> anonymously.  Further, modern technology will allow, relatively easily,
> anonymous
> complaining, so people will be able to rouse others and solicit assistance
> with little
> risk of identification.  The Cypherpunks list is a fair example of that,
> despite the fact that
> some of us choose to post under our own, true names.
>

I don't think "killing off complainers" really matters that much. You only
have to go after leaders and highly visible figures like Snowden.


> For these reasons, I am convinced that 'the rich' would not have any great
> power over
> the far larger number of ordinary people.  'The rich' wouldn't know,
> precisely, WHO
> their enemies are.   They have more money, rhetorically similar to having
> more bullets
> to shoot, but if they can't see the targets that advantage matters little.
>

More bullets, more bodyguards, better alarm systems, better security
generally.

>Ironically, AP would work best in a society with a high level of wealth
> equality. If there's high inequality, it just makes that worse.
>
> Well, I don't see that.  Perhaps you would care to explain this.  'Rich'
> people die
> as readily as the rest of us, and unless they somehow know who their
> 'enemies'
> are fairly powerless to prevent us from if they genuinely trespass against
> what
> we consider are our rights.
>

But they don't die as readily as the rest of us. They all get CCWs and
bodyguards and armored cars and on-staff medics to treat bullet wounds
quickly. And they get massive investigations by their local law enforcement
agency of any attack for "free".


> At the same time, I don't object merely because somebody gets rich, as
> long as
> he does so in a fair, unbiased fashion:  Put another way, I don't object
> if somebody
> gets rich selling Epi-pens,  as long as many other people are free to
> enter the same
> market, generally without government restriction.  The patent for Epi-Pens
> probably
> ran out years ago; the current restriction is simply that the FDA has
> arrogated the
> power to decide if any given manufacture should be allowed to sell his
> version of
> the Epi-pen, or not.   Too many 'nots', and what you have is not a free
> market at
> all, but twisted version of that.  (Clearly, if Mylan Labs is able to jack
> up the price for
> a pair of Epi-pens from $100 to $600 over a period of 6 years, there is no
> way that
> a true 'free market' can be operating.)
>

Agreed.

This doesn't mean that I object to the current patent system.  In her book
> Atlas
> Shrugged, Ayn Rand came out on the side of private intellectual property,
> objecting
>  to the theft by government of metal-maker Henry Reardon's special metal
> alloy,
> "Reardon metal", by means of blackmail.
>

I think she was wrong about it. And even if you support patents generally,
they are heavily abused in their current form and in at least some
industries it's not at all clear whether they are a net benefit. There are
other funding models for research that don't require granting a temporary
monopoly to whoever happens to write down an idea and pay the fee first.


> Of course, I understand that by citing Ayn Rand's reasoning (and I am by
> no means
> a Randian, having learned I was a libertarian years before knowing about
> Ayn Rand
> and her books) it may seem I am committing the rhetorical sin of
> 'appealing to
> authority'.   And, I realize that there is something of a conundrum about
> advocating a
> 'free market' and yet implicitly supporting the one remaining control,
> that of
> a patent system somewhat akin to what the world uses today.  (Who enforces
> such
> a patent system, except a government?)
>

Appeals to authority are perfectly fine in informal discussions. And I can
imagine, at least fuzzily, intellectual property systems that don't rely on
an organization with a monopoly on violence. I suspect that in trying to
set one up the market would demonstrate that it's more expensive than it's
worth, though.

Let me propose an outline of a solution which could square the circle:  At
> some
> early point, say age 18, each person would be asked whether he wishes to
> live
> his life WITH Intellectual Property rules, or not.  He can choose either
> way, but
> if he refuses, manufacturers can band together to agree to sell only to
> people
> who agree to those rules.  Correspondingly, those who sign the
> pro-Intellectual
> Property agreement agree thereby to bar themselves from buying products
> from
> non-intellectual-property agree-er manufacturers.  Violations could be
> policed by
> an AP-type system.  This wouldn't have to be a permanent decision, for any
> person.
>


 Other manufacturers may make products that are made
> for sale to non-Intellectual Property agree-ers, but they will be shut out
> from dealing
> with what I expect will be the majority, let's call them "Pro-Intellectual
> Property"
> people and manufacturers.  I am fairly confident that the advantages of
> dealing with
> what I believe will be the majority, those that comply with Intellectual
> Property rules,
> will be sufficient to keep all but a small minority of the public willing
> to live
> voluntarily with such rules.  Put simply, I suggest that there are some
> rather powerful
> advantages to having a system which rewards inventors.
>

The voluntary systems I imagine work similarly, though mostly focused
around whether or not one has recourse in particular private court systems.
I am hard pressed to think of any previous system where people all agreed
not to sell that didn't require violence or eventually break down. OPEC has
only worked because it's an extraction industry and its members have mostly
been dictatorships where the dictator or their descendant would likely be
in charge when the oil finally runs out. And it's starting to break down as
Iran starts thinking about being more democratic.

I agree with the last sentence, but a temporary monopoly granted by the
government is not the only way to reward inventors, and people are
constantly inventing things which can easily be copied, which I think goes
to show that you don't have to do *anything* to ensure that inventors are
rewarded.

I think patents may have made more sense when it was much harder for
individuals and small groups to get funding to develop an idea, and the
only people with the resources to develop them were the guilds and
state-sponsored corporations like the East India Company. Patents were a
way to protect the "little guy." Now it's much easier to get your hands on
funding than it was then, whether it's a small business loan, SBIR, venture
or angel capital, or crowdfunding. It makes the "first mover advantage"
much more significant when you can move as fast or even faster than a large
company that has the same idea, and those larger organizations tend to be
risk-averse anyway.

It's quite possible I'm biased from working in Silicon Valley, where most
patents get applied for not for protection from having your idea "stolen,"
but for protection from other patentholders. Or because they're seen as
valuable by potential investors/buyers, but that mostly matters before you
have a customer base and infrastructure.
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